Still Waters 3 Side Stories: Book 1
by RedPBass
Summary: This is a collection of short stories regarding characters from my main work, Still Waters 3. Multiple Genres and ratings, contains tons of OCs. The sixth story is up, in which Yuuna, Akira, Ako, Makie, and Jennifer do some catching up of their own.
1. How Taro Met Possum

_**Author's Notes:** Before you start reading, please be aware that this chapter is the first in a series of one shots regarding the cast of characters, OC and canon, from my main story, Still Waters 3. If you haven't read some of that first, you won't understand these one shots much. Also, I am aware this first one is a little underwhelming; I just felt it was necessary at the time and later ones will be better, hopefully. If you have any requests or ideas for situations my OCs from my story Still Waters 3 or the canon characters' aged up selves can get into, let me know. If I feel like I can work with it, I'll write something up.  
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><p><span>Title<span>: How Taro Met Possum

Genre: Slice of Life, Action, OCs

Rated: T

Timeframe: August 3rd, 2007, two years before the start of SW3.

Spoilers: None, though reading to chapter four or five of SW3 might help your understanding of the characters. This one was written specifically to give a little insight into the relationship of Taro and Possum for the reader to understand them better in the upcoming chapters of the main story (25, 26, 27...).

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><p>How Taro Met Possum<p>

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><p>'So, I'm finally here, huh?' Twelve-and-a-half year old Possum Cade thought as she stepped off the train and shouldered her bag. She glanced around the crowded platform and eyed the others around her. All it took was a short look at the tall man with the glasses and the cigarette, the cute boy a little older than her with the glasses and briefcase, and the smirking girl with the sideways ponytail the other two seemed to be seeing off, and she couldn't help but smile. Already she had found others like her... 'Looks like coming to Mahora was the right choice after all,' she thought as she strolled away from the train station with a spring in her step.<p>

'I should call grandma and Lucy and tell 'em I made it okay...' she thought as she walked along. She caught a Japanese boy staring at her, and smiled. He turned away quickly, and her smile became a toothy grin. The boys were funny, too! "Heh~"

After a few minutes of walking, she stepped off the road into an alley entrance and knelt down, placing her bag in front of her. She unzipped it and rooted around inside for a moment, searching for the map she had drawn. Past the small roll of cloth, the bags of weird powders, and the leather bag full of small glass bottles containing a variety of mysterious oils, she found it. She zipped the bag shut and settled back, leaning against the wall of the building behind her as she studied the map.

"Hmm..." She looked for a street sign or anything that would make a good landmark, and frowned slightly. Everything was written in Japanese...then again, that was what she had expected, really. She contemplated pulling out the Japanese-English dictionary she had bought in San Francisco, but ultimately decided against it. All it had taken was a few awkward conversations with the natives upon her arrival to show her that the dictionary was all but useless.

Somewhere in the distance, the roar of motorcycles grew louder, and she realized for the first time that the sound had been steadily growing for some time. Curious, she moved to the mouth of the alley and looked both ways, but she couldn't see anything from where she was through the crowds of people. She shot a quick look around the alley and smiled when she spotted a telephone pole at the far end. She darted over and shimmied up until she reached roof level, then hopped over onto the roof of the convenience store to her right. The motorcycles were very close now, gunning their engines. She could hear shouts and drivers beeping their horns. She ran over to the edge of the roof and shaded her eyes as she looked out...and sure enough, there they were. She estimated about twenty bikes, all modified crazily. They seemed to be chasing something... She squinted her eyes against the sun's glare and made out a Japanese girl about her own age pushing through the mass of pedestrians as the motorcycles roared to a stop and gunned their engines. Several members of the biker gang hopped off their motorcycles and chased after her, shouting something in Japanese while their friends sped off, no doubt in order to circle around from behind.

She frowned. That just wasn't right. How could they chase after a girl like that? As she watched, the girl finally escaped the crowd and ran directly for the alley she herself had been standing in moments before. She ran over to the edge of the roof and looked down at the panting girl. "Hey! Hey you! Are you okay?"

The girl looked up at her, uncomprehending. "Ano..."

She blinked. 'Oh yeah, language barrier...' "Just a second! Wait a second!" she said, holding up her index finger in what she hoped wasn't some sort of obscure cultural insult. She dropped to her knees and began digging through her bag frantically, looking for the Japanese-English dictionary. She was distantly aware that from the sound of it, the group of motorcycles that had attempted to circle around had split up even further and were racing around the area in several groups. A moment later she pulled the dictionary from the bag and flipped it open, searching for the section she needed. "Okay...okay...there!" She ran over to the edge of the roof and looked over, but the girl was gone. She frowned. "Where did she go...?"

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><p>Thirteen year old Urashima Taro hopped onto the roof from the telephone pole and looked at the odd foreigner, who now seemed to be looking for her in the alley below. 'What the hell...?' she thought. What could this girl want with her? The girl didn't seem aware of her presence.<p>

"Hey, what do you want?" she asked irritably, pleasantly surprised by the girl's swift turn toward her and the way her hand went into the back pocket of her shorts, as if reaching for a weapon. The stranger spotted her and relaxed, then opened a small book and muttered something in what Taro thought was probably English. Taro cocked an eyebrow. "Hey, this is Japan, speak Japanese."

The girl watched her speak for a moment, seeming to mull over the words, then flipped through the book for a moment, pausing here and there. "You...of...scooter..." Taro watched, curious, as the girl paused and frowned, and started over. "Motorcycle...man...strong insult...brawl...argument...fight...Yes, fight!" she said, seemingly proud of herself for this nonsensical spurt of words.

Taro just gaped. What. The. Hell. "Look, you ain't making any sense, so I'll just go away now-"

"Okay? You okay? Okay, okay, okay...You okay are you?" the girl said.

"...yeah" Taro said after a moment as she deciphered what the girl had been trying to say, then decided to take pity on her. "It's not 'You okay are you?', it's supposed to be just 'Are you okay?'," she said, carefully articulating the syllables so the girl could understand her. 'Honestly, these foreigners...just learn the language already!' It was embarrassing!

The girl seemed to think about it for a moment, and nodded. "Are you okay?" she asked again.

Taro nodded, and the girl nodded again, looking relieved. Then she stepped up to Taro and offered her hand, smiling wide. Taro was a little taken aback, but took the girl's hand awkwardly, and almost jerked her hand back when the other girl squeezed it and pumped it up and down a few times before letting go.

"My name is Possum Cade. What is your name?" she said slowly, her pronunciation almost correct. Taro had the feeling it was a phrase the girl had practiced a lot

"Urashima...Taro," Taro said hesitantly, looking away as she spoke her given name. Damn her mother for giving her such an embarrassing boy's name...! To her surprise, the girl simply nodded.

"Urashima Taro," Possum said, and nodded yet again. "Okay. Okay is name. Er...yes."

"Um...yeah. I'll be going now," Taro said as she moved over the edge of the roof and looked down into the alley. 'Okay, that was my good deed of the day, now back to the fight...' Then the girl grabbed her arm and Taro gave her an annoyed look.

"No. No no no," Possum said awkwardly. She let go of her arm and began to hastily thumb through her dictionary again, and Taro took the opportunity to climb over the edge of the roof. The girl who called herself 'Possum' let out an alarmed squawk as Taro lowered herself over and hung there for a moment, then let go.

Her landing was perfect except for one thing: it happened barely five feet in front of a rather surprised group of bikers, the same ones who had been so intent on running her down mere moments before.

"Oh hell," she said as she they looked down at her.

"Heh, imagine that, here we are looking all over for her and she just drops out of the sky," the lead one said as he pulled a length of heavy bicycle chain from a pouch on his belt and began spinning it. Taro took a step back as he slowly moved forward, the chain making an unsettling whooshing noise as he spun it faster.

Taro didn't like chains; they could really tear a person up if you weren't careful. She preferred something like a baseball bat: simple, easy to use, and you could take someone out with a single solid whack to the knee and not worry about _really_ hurting them. With a baseball bat, there wasn't really any need to practice to get good with it, either...she just wished she had thought to take one along when she went out earlier. A chain, on the other hand...you needed to be pretty competent with a chain just to avoid hurting yourself. She frowned as she sized him up. He was maybe twenty three, twenty four, tall, strong looking...he made a quick motion with the hand holding the chain and it shot forward, missing her face by a hair's breadth as she jerked back. "You...!" she growled. How dare he aim at her face!

"Heh, what's the matter, little girlie? Are you scared of a little chain? Scared of getting a little scar on that pretty little face? That's the least you're going to get after what you did to aniki! We won't forgive even if you _are_ a little brat!" he said as he darted forward again and the chain swung up and...wrapped around the end of a 2x4.

Taro looked at the guy, then up at the chain. The guy looked up at the chain, the end wrapped around a long board that a girl up on the roof was holding, and then back down at Taro. "Oh sh-"

What he was about to say, luckily, was garbled when Taro's knee smashed his nose to pulp. Unfortunately, he failed to let go of the chain as he fell backward into his compatriots, and Possum, being quite a bit lighter than his two hundred pounds, let out a yelp as she was unceremoniously yanked off the roof. She felt straight into the group of bikers, nailing one in the head with an elbow and sending him staggering against the wall while another took the honor of breaking her fall with his head. A hundred and five pounds of girl landed on him and drove him to the ground, gasping for breath. She rolled off still holding her stick and wasted no time, driving it into the stomach of the first available target and forcing him to double over and fall to his knees in agony. She bashed him in the head while Taro kicked the next one in the face. The last one, seeing what had happened to his five big, strong, adult biker friends at the hands of two girls who were barely into their teens, fled screaming.

And then the alley was silent save for the sound of two girls panting and the groans of the badly beaten bikers.

Possum looked at Taro and grinned, and Taro couldn't help but grin back.

"You know, you're not half bad," Taro said, grinning crookedly.

Possum grinned back at her, her expression slightly confused.

"Oh, right, you don't speak Japanese, huh..." Taro said, scratching her head as she glanced back down at the fallen members of the biker gang for a moment. "Um...GOOD JOB, YES!" she said in heavily accented English, adding a thumbs-up to make sure the other girl understood.

Possum brightened up and grinned wide. Until the sound of rapidly approaching motorcycles broke the relative peace of the alley. Taro grabbed Possum's hand and they ran, grinning like a maniac as a motorcycle turned into the other end of the alley and gunned toward them. Taro slipped aside, but Possum swung her bag around and hit the rider in the face as he roared past, knocking him off the back of the bike, which bounced back and forth between the walls of the alley before flipping and rolling over the injured members of the biker gang and ultimately somersaulting across the road, finally coming to rest in some bushes beside a bench to the accompaniment of startled cries from the locals.

The two of them looked at each other and took off running. Taro glanced back at Possum, who looked back at her with bright eyes and a wicked grin, and couldn't help but laugh; Possum broke out into wild laughter too. As they fled the scene of carnage, laughing like a couple of lunatics, Taro couldn't help but think that this might be the start of a beautiful friendship.

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><p><em><strong>Author's Notes<strong>: Well, here's a little bit about Possum's arrival in Mahora and how she became Taro's best (and only) friend. There's nothing like a little street gang violence to bring two people together ;p Also, wondering who the bikers are and who 'aniki' is? They're part of a biker gang that was trying to terrorize Mahora at the time. No one took them seriously, and Taro beat 'aniki' up and left him in front of a police station. They are quite confused about the situation. It's okay, they'll realize what kind of place Mahora is and what sort of people live there before too long, and run away screaming like little girls.  
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	2. DowntimeDekopin Rocket

Title: Downtime~Dekopin Rocket

Characters: Misa, Madoka, Ako, Sakurako

Genre: Half of 'em

Rating: T, just because

Timeframe: Right after SW3 Chapter 23: Intruder Part 2, the afternoon and evening of Monday, June 15th, 2009.

Spoilers: none

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><p>Sakurako stretched her arms out above her head, rolled over, and drifted back into a light doze where the sunlight hit the faux-wood floor in Misa's apartment. She let out a sigh of contentment after a moment as she twisted again, this time just using the top half of her body, and again relaxed.<p>

"Aaahhh~"

She perked up when she heard keys rattling in the lock, however, and pushed the top half of her body up off the floor to look at the door. Misa was supposed to bring her some of that cake she liked so much... The door opened and Madoka stepped inside, a crooked grin on her face even before she spotted Sakurako lolling about on the floor. Ako followed, looking rather bemused as she wrestled with a big triangular box. Sakurako slumped back to the floor.

"Aww, I thought you were Misa," she whined as she rolled over in the sunlight again so she was lying on her back, arms outstretched. She took a deep breath and let it out with a semi-content catlike grin on her face.

"I feel so loved," Madoka said, still grinning as she picked up a stray guitar from the couch and set it aside to make enough room to sit down.

"Heh, bring me some cake and I'll show you what it means to be loved~" Sakurako said playfully.

Madoka just rolled her eyes. "Yeah. You'll curl up at the foot of my bed and shed hair all over my clothes, you cat freak," she said.

Sakurako stuck her tongue out. She rolled over again onto her side and stretched languorously.

Madoka eyed the other woman idly for a moment; Sakurako had come a long way from the admittedly attractive teen she had been when they first started their band. Then again, so had they all. Even Ako had her own fan club now, though they could get pretty creepy at times. 'But,' Madoka thought as she leaned back and let her head rest on the back of the couch, 'at least I haven't had to beat up any Ako-stalkers in a while...' She didn't know what Sakurako did about that sort of thing, but the woman had never complained to Madoka about it. If she had been anyone but Sakurako Madoka might have been worried; as it was, Sakurako could definitely take care of herself.

Sakurako rolled over again to watch Ako as she cleared some space on the small table that served as their dining table. She set aside the box of stray guitar straps, the two guitars, and the stray drum stick and placed the triangular box on the table.

"Got another one, huh?" Sakurako asked, perking up.

Ako nodded as she opened the box and took out the odd V-shaped flame top bass guitar she had special-ordered from a custom shop in the U.S. That strange girl they had met in the guitar shop hadn't seemed very impressed, but Ako loved it. Madoka took the empty box and put it on top of the stack of similar boxes in the corner.

Sakurako whistled appreciatively at the beautiful instrument and sat up. "Misa's gonna kill you, you know," she said, grinning wide.

Ako slipped the strap of the guitar up over her head and plucked the strings in a tune they were all familiar with by this point, smiling prettily as she listened to the tone. If the guitar sounded that good when it wasn't even plugged in...

'Drift Away again? It's like she doesn't know any other song,' Madoka thought, grinning at her friend. "She's right, you know," Madoka said after a moment. "Your guitars are all over the place," she said, holding her hand out to take in the whole room. Indeed, Ako's many, many guitars were everywhere. In cases, on stands, leaning against the furniture and walls, there were dozens and dozens of guitars cluttering up the living room of Misa's spacious apartment. And, if one were to open a few doors, more could be found in the closets, in the bedrooms, and in the kitchen; the only place there weren't any was the bathroom.

"They aren't all mine!" Ako said defensively. It was true, too. Misa had her fair share, and so did Madoka. Even Sakurako had a few, but there was no question that out of all the guitars present, those belonging to Ako outnumbered all of those belonging to the other three girls put together. And then there was all the stuff at Madoka's house... "And...well...she doesn't have to know about it." Ako couldn't help but grin again as she plucked the strings. "We can say I've had it for a while and she just never noticed..."

"Heh~ I've taught you well, young grasshopper," Sakurako said sagely. "Use your power well."

Madoka rolled her eyes.

"And besides, what's your problem with her guitars, Madoka?" Sakurako said slyly.

"What do you mean?"

Sakurako's catlike grin widened. "Huhuhu~ I have one word to say to you, Madoka-kun~ 'Attic~'"

Madoka turned away. "Th-that doesn't matter. At least I keep all mine in cases. Did you know you left your EB-0 on the couch, Ako?" Madoka said, turning her attention toward the other girl again. "That's a really nice bass, you shouldn't just leave it sitting around like that!"

"I found your seven string behind the couch the other day," Ako said, adjusting one of the tuners.

"Huh...so that's where it was..."

When it seemed the other two had settled down and would provide no more entertainment, Sakurako laid back down in the patch of sunlight on the floor and a comfortable silence spread through the room, broken only by the pleasant sound of Ako plucking the strings on her new bass guitar. It really was a beauty, Sakurako reflected as she watched Ako play the guitar from the corner of her eye. 'A well done flame top is a beautiful thing, that it is,' she thought to herself as she rolled over again. She let out a content sigh and relaxed, letting the fading sunlight warm her body.

Naturally, Misa chose this moment of beautiful peacefulness to kick the door in. "Heeey everybody! What's up?" she asked, waving her arms around. "Guess what I heard today?" She continued on before anyone could speak up as she strode into the room. "Apparently someone beat up two idiots and left them in an alley. No one seems to know who did it, but according to the locals they really deserved it. Isn't it cool?" she said, looking at the others.

Madoka sighed wearily while Ako studiously pretended she hadn't heard. Sakurako rolled over on her back, twisted again, and grinned in Madoka's general direction. Madoka shot her a look that practically _screamed_ 'Do you have something to say?', but Sakurako just grinned smugly and Madoka looked away.

Misa watched all of this and grinned knowingly. "He~eh, I wonder who did it; maybe it was Mahora's very own superhero?" she asked, grinning at Madoka. She wandered over in the general direction of the couch. "'Oh~ I am a pitiful damsel, and these big strong criminals are trying to kidnap me! Oo~oh, won't you _s~ave_ me, Ace of Spades?'" she said, staggering helplessly over to where Madoka sat on the couch. Madoka gave her a look and Misa laughed. "'O~oh, you wound me~ I fear I will faint from the _ter_ror~'" she said, then collapsed dramatically, draping herself over Madoka's lap.

Madoka couldn't help but laugh. "Idiot. Come on, get off," she said, giving the other girl a little push.

"Don' wanna," Misa replied, her face buried in a couch cushion.

Madoka gave up and grinned. Misa was warm, and it wasn't an entirely unpleasant situation. She leaned back again and yawned. "Man I'm tired...we don't have a show tonight, do we?" she asked, looking at Ako.

"Not tonight," Ako said, studiously refusing to look at the two on the couch. She knew Haruna would have a field day with this, and was more than a little confused as to how the crazy woman didn't seem to have picked up on it before. She glanced over at Sakurako, who was watching the other two with a slyly amused look creeping over her face. Really, how had she fallen in with these three, anyway? Bunch of weirdos. She couldn't help but smile, however.

Sakurako abruptly sat up. "Hey!"

Madoka, Misa and Ako looked up.

"Something wrong?" Madoka asked dryly.

"You never brought me my cake!"

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><p><em><strong>Author's Notes<strong>: Yeah...one is (SW universe) canon, the others aren't. Figure that out if you can. Muahaha, cryptic remarks_


	3. Downtime  No Name Band

Title: Downtime~No Name Band

Characters: Kobayashi Ayumi, Watanabe Miyako, Kondo Kai, Kara Stride

Genre: Half of 'em

Rating: T, just because

Timeframe: Right after SW3 Chapter 23: Intruder Part 2, the evening of Monday, June 15th, 2009.

Spoilers: Yes, about some of the students mentioned above. If you haven't read up to chapter 20 or so, you WILL be spoiled about some of these characters.

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><p>Kondo Kai trudged wearily out of the woods, exhausted after half a week of intense training with her classmates in Eva's resort under the tutelage of their P.E. teacher, Max Linell. It had been tough from day one, but thanks to her status as an oni, it hadn't been all <em>that<em> bad; not for her. The other girls, however, Aiko, Mako, Gin, and Kimi, were all struggling just to keep up with the basics. Each girl had her own specialty, but their teacher seemed insistent on building up their physical strength and stamina. From time to time that Asuna woman had shown up to offer her two cents' worth, and, aggravating or not, Kai had to admit that the others were beginning to toughen up. Kimi hadn't been too bad, having kept herself in shape since she was old enough to learn swordsmanship from her mother, but the others had been ill prepared for such training.

She turned onto one of the paved walkways that pointed in the general direction of the train station and continued walking, still thinking about the training she had undergone. It was sort of hard to comprehend; they had all gone straight to the resort after school and had spent _days _in there, and yet according to her cell phone it was still only Monday, about four hours after school. She flicked her cell phone shut and was just about to put it back into her pocket when she got an incoming call.

Kai flicked her phone back open and held it up to her ear. "Hello?"

'Kai! Where have you been? I've been trying to call you for hours but your phone's been out of service!'

Kai sighed. Ah, Ayumi. To tell the truth, Kai had indeed noticed the dozen or so missed calls...and had decided to ignore them. Ayumi was usually annoying at best, and rarely ever had anything important to say.

"Well yeah, I had to take care of something so I turned off my cell phone. Why, is something wrong?" she asked. There was silence from the other end for a moment as Ayumi no doubt ran through various scenarios in which Kai would dare to turn off her phone. She sighed. She had known Ayumi for years, and the other girl never failed to disappoint.

'Did you get a boyfriend?' The other girl's voice had become stiff and accusatory. It was a tone Kai knew well, and one that always threatened to make her lose her temper.

Kai's hand unconsciously tightened around around her cell phone until it creaked. "No," she said through clenched teeth. "So did you want something? I was just on my way back to the dorm..."

Ayumi's voice immediately brightened up. 'Yeah! We're all going to karaoke, come on! We'll meet you at the station in fifteen minutes, see ya there!'

Ayumi hung up without waiting for an answer, and Kai very carefully unwrapped her fingers from her cell phone and flipped it shut again. She _really_ needed some rest after all that training, but Ayumi had asked her to come to karaoke, and if she didn't show Ayumi would see to it that Kai paid for it, one way or another.

"Idiot, shouldn't even have answered the phone," Kai grumbled as she set off toward the station at a trot.

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><p>"-gonna take her home~cause she's over romancin, don' wanna hold hands and talk about our little plans alright!"<p>

Kai moaned and dropped her head into her hands. "Why did I ever agree to come here?" she asked Miyako, who sat next to her, wincing from time to time as she tried to ignore the way Kara and Ayumi were slaughtering what just so happened to be one of Ayumi's favorite songs, even though the girl couldn't understand (or properly pronounce) the lyrics, which were in English. Miyako just grinned helplessly and shook her head.

"-she was shakin her hips and that was all that I needed, I'm waitin, give me-"

Kai raised her head to look at the other two, wondering if Ayumi actually understood what she was singing with Kara. Surely she did, right? 'I mean, how _couldn't_ she...?' Kai wondered. She herself didn't understand all the words, but she knew enough English to understand the meaning of certain phrases in this song such as 'she was shaking her hips' and 'just a kiss on the lips'. She had asked Kara about the meaning of the rest of the lyrics, and the American girl had hesitantly and with much blushing explained that the song was about a guy who picked up a girl at a bar, and that was all Kai needed to hear to understand. Ayumi probably just thought it sounded cool. She looked up at Kara and Ayumi, and barely managed to keep from bursting into laughter. Ayumi had apparently decided to add some dancing to her performance, and was alternately trying to bounce around on her own and trying to bounce her hips off of Kara, who had gone deep red and seemed to be struggling to keep up with the song.

"They get along really well," Miyako said after a moment.

Kai barked a short laugh that Ayumi thankfully missed due to Kara's voice cracking hilariously on one of the higher notes. It was true, too. Kara and Ayumi, aggravated at each other all the time or not, were almost always together. "Ha, and she thinks _I'm_ her best friend...!"

Miyako grinned crookedly and turned her attention back to the list of songs to choose from.

"Cold hard bitch, just a kiss on the lips and I was on my knees, I'm waiting, give me~"

Kai stood up and reached for the microphone as Kara and Ayumi screamed out the last line of the song, but Ayumi pulled the microphone back out of Kai's reach and whooped and hollered into it, slinging an arm around Kara's shoulders so she couldn't escape either. Kai gave Ayumi a look the other girl missed and sat back down, rolling her eyes.

And that, Kai reflected, was the No Name Band in a nutshell. She eyed Kara and Ayumi preparing to wail into the microphones again as the next song came up, and stood up.

"Hey Kai, where ya goin?" Ayumi demanded.

"Bathroom."

"O~kay~ Hurry up and get back, I'm gonna sing God Knows next!"

"Yeah yeah..."

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><p>Kai slumped back against the wall out in the hallway and rubbed her aching forehead. Kara's harpy voice was bad, but at least the American girl would <em>admit<em> it was bad. Ayumi apparently still had her heart set on being the lead singer some day. The girl could barely manage to sing while playing her guitar, never mind trying to sing _well_. "Ugh..."

"Heya Kai-chan~!"

Kai squeezed her eyes shut tightly for a moment before turning to greet the speaker. She had a killer headache. "Hey Rina, I didn't expect to see you here. What's up?"

Her classmate Sasaki Rina was excited as usual, radiating energy as she stood there beaming at Kai. "I came to do karaoke with Kumiko-chan. Are you going to the bathroom?"

Kai couldn't help but grin a little. Rina always amused her; the girl's stupid straightforwardness would have driven Ayumi insane in ten minutes, maybe less. It was an intriguing thought. "Supposedly. Mostly I'm just getting away from Ayumi's screeching. How about you?"

"Ha ha ha! Bathroom! Come on, let's talk." They walked to the bathroom while Rina kept up a running commentary on anything and everything. Normally, Kai would have taken a more active role in their conversation, but today she just didn't feel like it; she had too much on her mind. The other girl seemed to pick up on it, and was glad for the opportunity to talk as much as she wanted.

When they exited the bathroom together, Rina looked around suspiciously and leaned in close. "You know, Ayumi's really kind of mean. I don't see why you all hang around with her so much, especially Kara-san, she's so pretty. Did you know Ayumi's been picking on Caro-chan again? She twisted her hair yesterday, right in the middle of the street!"

Kai heaved a sigh. "Ugh..."

"I know, right? I went up and yelled at her, but she gave me a mean look and went away. What's up with that?"

Kai shook her head. "I really wish she'd stop picking on her..."

Rina nodded sagely. "I know, right? Well here's your room, and I'm off~! Have fun, Kai-chan~!" Rina said, waving as she ran off.

"Yeah, fun. I'll do that," Kai mumbled. She watched Rina go for a moment, marveling at the other girl's energy, then turned and opened the door.

"-KIZUATOOOOO~ NAZORUUUUUUUUU~-"

Kai quickly stepped in and shut the door behind her so no one out in the hall could be subjected to this ear-splitting mess. She sat down beside Miyako, waiting for the song to end. Why oh _why_ were there so many loud parts in this song? It was as if it had been specifically written to make Kai's head ring, and something about Ayumi's off-key voice when she sang a song like this resonated in her oni horns and made her headache even _worse_. Ugh...

Finally, mercifully, the song ended and Kai stood up, adjusting her hat. "Look Ayumi, I'm tired, I really need to get back-" She couldn't help but feel Miyako jerk beside her and see Kara's suddenly pleading gaze, begging her to stay.

"What? You can't leave, we're not done yet!" Ayumi bellowed into the microphone.

Kai just cocked an eyebrow at her, studiously ignoring Kara's pleading look. As usual Kara was embarrassed. Kara was embarrassed to dress like a girl, she was embarrassed to dance, she was even embarrassed to sing in front of her own friends! The girl really needed to loosen up...! Kai couldn't help but relent however when Miyako reached up and tugged the end of her sleeve, especially when she looked down at their band's real singer's wide, worried eyes. She heaved a sigh and plopped back down. There was no way she could leave Miyako here alone with Ayumi. Kara would be too embarrassed to say anything if Ayumi started picking on her.

"Well fine, if you guys are gonna be like that I guess I can stay for a few more songs..."

"Great! Now come on, I wanna sing that one again!" Ayumi said, pointing at Miyako. Miyako, for her part, simply nodded and put in the numbers. When the song started up again, Kai felt someone looking at her and looked up to see Kara's apologetic glance. The American girl was obviously exhausted as well, and Kai couldn't blame her. Being around Ayumi for any length of time was a real pain any way you looked at it. Being around Kara wasn't much better, though in a different way, Kai thought as she eyed the other girl's clumsy attempts to match the ridiculous choreography that Ayumi insisted on for this song.

'I wish she would stop bouncing like that...'

It made a girl feel downright pathetic.

Her thoughts were cut off when the song reached what in a normal song would have amounted to a chorus and the pace picked up. Ayumi began screaming the lyrics, incorrectly of course, into the microphone and Kai heaved yet another sigh. She was looking longingly at the door when she felt another tug at her sleeve and looked back at Miyako. The girl's eyes were pleading with her not to leave her there, and Kai just couldn't find it in her to abandon the girl there.

"Dammit, why am I so nice?" Kai grumbled to herself as she settled in for the long haul. She checked the clock on the wall. Well, no matter how much Ayumi wanted to sing they still had the dorm's curfew to consider, and it was starting to get late. She glanced at Kara, who looked at her thankfully as she yelled into the microphone, over to Miyako. The shy girl glanced up a gave her a brief, grateful look, then turned back to the song list, and Kai turned her attention to the final member of the band. Ayumi continued screeching into the microphone, making up her own words whenever she lost her place, utterly oblivious to the discomfort of the other three. The song came to a close and Ayumi abruptly grabbed Kara around the middle and tried to lift her up and spin her around like people sometimes did on TV, but the taller girl was too heavy for her and they ended up in a tangled heap on the floor, Ayumi laughing wildly while Kara protested, blushing heavily.

Kai dropped her head into her hands; she felt a migraine coming on. Ayumi was an idiot, an utter failure at reading the mood of a room, even when it only contained four people. And she had no sense of personal space! For someone who professed to be utterly straight, Ayumi certainly seemed fond of what she called 'girl-on-girl fanservice', which usually just meant Ayumi hugging or putting an arm around one of them on stage, not that they had actually _been_ on stage since the band tournament a while back, in any case. Still, that little fact didn't stop her from pulling a stunt like this at the end of just about every song, even when they were just practicing in the club room...she just claimed it was practice. 'Yeah right, she's _so_ trapped in the closet,' Kai thought, then laughed at the absurdity of the thought. Ayumi? A lesbian? Ha, yeah right. More like she just enjoyed making people uncomfortable.

"Come on Kai, it's your turn!" Ayumi said into the microphone. Naturally, it was Kara, blushing heavily and looking utterly humiliated by Ayumi's stunt, who gave up her microphone so Kai could sing.

Kai took the microphone reluctantly and made sure Kara was seated. "I wanna sing-"

"God Knows again!" Ayumi bellowed, interrupting her. Miyako gave Kai an apologetic look and entered the numbers that would start the song a third time. Kai glanced at Kara, who was still sulking, and then at Ayumi, who was already starting the ridiculous dance she had created to go along with this song. She couldn't help but sigh yet again.

This would be a looong night.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Author's Notes<strong>: In case you didn't know, the first song they sang was Cold Hard Bitch, by Jet. The second was God Knows, the song from the festival episode of The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi. The other characters mentioned are all students in the same class except the P.E. teacher, though you should at least be able to recognize their names at this point if you have read up to the current chapter of the main story. Hopefully this will help you to understand these characters better._


	4. A Day in the Life of a Cat

Title: A Day in the Life of a Playdoh Cat, or Kagami's Cat

Characters: Kagami's playdoh cat

Genre: Slice of Life, Horror

Rated: T

Timeframe: Some time in May, 2009

Spoilers: Only if you don't know about the cat...too late I guess?

"This is speech."

"_This is a spell in another language but translated for everyone's convenience."_

* * *

><p>Some stories are like epic movies, full of action, evil plots, good versus evil, and lots and lots (and lots, if you're Michael Bay) of explosions. Some stories are hot and steamy things, full of passion and forbidden love, tawdry tales of things many would agree are best left secret between lovers. Some stories are intelligent, well written masterpieces, their titles recognizable a century or more after their completion, the bane of literature students (who are often, strangely enough, the only ones who actually <em>read<em> these stories...) everywhere.

This is not one of those stories.

* * *

><p><em><strong>A Day In the Life of a Playdoh Cat<strong>_

* * *

><p>Darkness. Darkness, and the not-silence of a dorm building full of sleeping girls. It didnt sleep, so it didn't really understand the strange times when its master and others fell unconscious. It simply knew that this seemed to be normal for them, and so it would simply lie content in its small box, waiting for the sounds of movement.<p>

Someone dropped something the next floor down, and its ear twitched. It was unimportant, just one of the others. The others... It divided the beings of its world into three groups: the first consisted of its master and its creator, the second consisted of the others superficially like its master and its creator along with other large creatures, and the third...the third was prey.

An alarm clock rang in a room on the top floor, and it opened its eyes as the other than shared its master's living space rolled over again in her bed as she had done all night, occasionally moaning or muttering in her sleep, her words confused and wary and occasionally scared. The other that shared the room with its master soon stopped moving, however, and it closed its eyes again as not-silence again descended over the dorm room. Thirty seconds later, its master's alarm clock rang.

* * *

><p>Its master's morning schedule was a flurry of nonsensical activities during which she ate things on sticks, spat them back out, drank things, spat them back out, chewed things, and spat them back out. She would shed her skin and put on a new one she kept in a hole in the wall, pull on her head fur until it made a tail attached to her head (Master must do this because she wishes she had a fine tail of her own, it reasoned out) and attached one of its colorful string toys to her head-tail (no doubt Master must do this to keep something precious to it close to her) and left, along with the other that shared its master's living space. This other, it decided, must also be special to its master. Its master allowed this other to touch it and release it from its box, something it had never experienced before. Never had its master allowed any of the others to so much as look at it for more than a few seconds, much less touch it. And yet, this other, which it had recently begun thinking of as Endo, the sound its Master used to address this other, was allowed free reign around it. And, it thought, it might have finally figured out why.<p>

It's master must have decided to acquire another pet.

Yes, this other, this...this Endo, must be its master's second pet.

It laid it's ears back warily as it's box was suddenly pulled sharply to the side and lifted through the air, but it relaxed when the box was cracked open and its master looked in at it kindly. It stood up, purring at her, and she smiled prettily and rubbed a finger on its head. It purred more loudly, and then its master shut the box and it found itself pushed back under the bed. It looked at this philosophically; its master was a being of whims, and its life wasn't bad. It wasn't as if it was ever left wanting in energy, and it could find whatever else it needed on its own. Its box was no prison, after all. It listened carefully as its master and its master's new pet left the room and shut the door behind them. The others, living in the rooms all around, soon joined its master on her way to wherever it was she went in the daytime, and a tense, expectant silence settled over the not-so-empty dorm building.

It moved to the edge of its box and pushed the top up with its nose just enough to peak out. Sure enough, _they_ had begun to appear. The little _things_ that always appeared when master and the others had left. Tiny scurrying things, running around and eating whatever crumbs had been dropped, eating each other, and then moving on.

It waited until it spotted one particularly large one, a shiny brown and black thing with antennae, move out into the center of the floor. It had to be careful; this sort of prey was easily spooked, and fast moving. It poked its nose out through the narrow opening of its box and oozed out, reforming itself into the shape its master preferred once it was out. It waited in the shadows under the bed, watching carefully as the prey scurried around. Several others appeared and joined the prey in the middle of the floor.

It watched carefully, crept silently forward, and leaped through the air, flattening out into a sheet as it went, covering all four of the prey. It pulled itself together, dragging the prey with it, and reformed, satisfied. With this, the rest of the prey would stay out of its master's room for a while. It nodded in self satisfaction and moved over to the door and oozed underneath it.

Out in the hallway, it looked both ways for a moment, and then trotted along toward the giant hill. The hill was quite strange; it went straight up for a short distance, then cut off abruptly to a flat plane about as long as the first part was tall. This bizarre geography was repeated, over and over, and it's master and the others used this hill to go higher or lower in this massive place. It squatted down, preparing itself, and then leapt up to the flat section and prepared to face the next one. It repeated this action until it found itself in the area the others called 'upstairs', where it again trotted along the hallway. Here, much to its surprise, it found the special other, the white one who floated in the air. It meowed up at her, and she turned to look, cooed something it couldn't understand, smiled, and rubbed its head. It purred in satisfaction, took a little energy (which it compressed to avoid expansion), and continued on, checking every room as it went. It was a proper guardian, and it took its position very seriously. It captured what prey it could find as it went, doing its best to take care of its master's home and the others who shared it.

When it had completed its rounds of the dorm, it climbed up to the roof and sat in the open air for a while, and soon fell into a state of blissful contentment as it basked in the sun.

Hours passed, and it lolled about on the sun baked roof until suddenly it sensed another presence, something sinister and wild. It was almost instantly on its feet again and scampered into the shadow of a big gray metal thing it had heard one of the others call an 'air conditioning unit'. It waited in the darkness, watching closely. It couldn't see it yet, but it could sense the thing's malice; the air was thick with it. It watched, alert and still, for the thing to show itself. Whatever the thing was stepped on a dry leaf, and the crackle gave away the thing's position.

It gave off the unmistakable stench of corruption and decay and black magic, the sort of nightmare creature spawned by excess magic and bad dreams. It had probably been born ages ago, unable to manifest until the conditions were right, until it could enter someone's dream and so escape into the real world.

Its gaze met the thing's from across the roof, and both stood in silence, each watching the other.

It crept forward out of the shadow of the 'air conditioning unit' and into the open, fully revealing itself to the thing. The thing, for its part, hissed evilly and crept forward, not unlike a cat itself. The thing was quite large, it's twisted, obscenely thin feline frame showing far more ribs than any earthly cat could possibly contain, its body appeared more snake than cat. The thing's skin was covered in a coarse, dirty, dark colored pelt dripping oils that smoked on the rooftop as it stood there, waiting.

It watched the thing's elongated, nightmarish cat's head yawn open wide to allow its long three-forked tongue to come out and wash its unblinking eyes, and still neither of them moved another step. The thing was huge, almost four feet long when one counted its long, winding tail, so like a rat's, and the playdoh cat began to wonder if it should go for help. It was only a few inches long itself, if this thing decided to attack, it could be a difficult battle...

The thing, however, took the choice out of its hands as it sprang into action, crossing the space between them with three enormous leaps. The thing's cruelly fanged mouth opened twelve inches wide as it darted toward the playdoh cat, but the cat slipped aside at the last moment, opened its own mouth, and bit a chunk out of the nightmare creature's back leg as it went by.

The creature howled in rage, an unearthly squeal beyond the range of human hearing, and whirled around to attack the playdoh cat again, trailing steaming ichor from its wound. The cat slipped underneath this time and ripped the nightmarish beast's belly open from underneath with its claws, spilling out thick, oily smoke and foul ichor. The horrible thing's concept of self was wavery at best, and it was so easily damaged...

Ichor splashed down on the cat and it howled in agony, its voice small and not unlike a kitten as the fluids tried to burn through the playdoh that made up its body. The nightmare creature wasted no time and batted it aside so hard it flattened out and splattered against the side of the 'air conditioning unit'. The thing kept after it, clawing away at the pieces of playdoh as the cat tried to pull itself back together. The creature howled again, voice dripping with rage, and batted its unformed body again, splattering it across the roof.

* * *

><p>This was bad. The cat knew this, in some strange magical way that only a golem could truly understand. It's body had been scattered, its spirit almost separated from its earthly matter, but still stubbornly clinging to the small part that remained. It saw the horrible creature lapping up the remains of its body and felt a shuddering revulsion at the sight. The nightmare creature was <em>eating<em> it. It couldn't die yet, it couldn't...a vision of its master's joyful face when she had finally recovered it after it ran away to its creator months ago drifted into its mind. She would be so sad when she returned to her living space and found the cat gone... The Endo pet would have to work hard to take its place, and it didn't think the Endo pet was capable of it. But poor Master would cry...! No, it couldn't allow itself to die like this...!

* * *

><p>The horrific catlike beast trotted up to the last quivering, shapeless blob of playdoh and looked at it for a moment, perhaps expecting some final trick, but...nothing. The blob simply kept quivering and trying to change shape. The thing watched its struggles for a moment, then sat down, something in its twisted, sick mess of impulses that served as its mind finding pleasure in the golem's struggle to remain corporeal.<p>

* * *

><p>The cat struggled with what was left of it, trying to regain its proper shape, but it was hard. The limiters it had placed on itself were holding it back. It would have to release some power to take its proper form again...<p>

* * *

><p>The nightmare creature cocked its head to the side as it detected the brief burst of power from the blob before it, and was quite surprised to see it had managed to form itself back into its original shape, though it was significantly smaller. Sensing something wrong, the creature backed away a few steps, watching warily.<p>

"Ah, so here you are," someone said. The beast whirled around, snarling at the interloper, but the tiny playdoh cat darted forward and bit out a tiny piece of its side. It hissed and spun around, swiping at the cat, but it had already darted underneath and took another bite out of the thing's belly.

"Heh~, you're pretty good, neko-chan," the woman said as she made herself comfortable on the edge of the roof and set her staff aside.

The cat recognized her, of course. It would recognize its creator just by her smell. But it had bigger things to take care of at the moment...

"So you've already removed one limiter, huh? Try removing another," the woman said. The nightmare creature snarled at her, but she paid it no mind. "Go ahead, it's okay," she said soothingly.

It looked from the cat monster to its creator and back, growling the whole time, and concentrated. The nightmare creature let out a hideous squealing roar and darted across the rooftop toward it.

"No you don't. Deflexio!" The creature smashed into a glowing purple wall, howling in rage as the chaotic collection of impulses and magic that served as its mind tried to understand why it couldn't reach its prey.

The playdoh cat looked thankfully at its creator and set about loosening its built-in limiters. It had never had to do this before, and it was quite worried about setting them in place again afterward. Each limiter was stronger than the last and held back more power, but...it looked through the glowing purple shield around it back to its creator, who smiled encouragingly while the nightmare creature batted ineffectively at the shield, yowling and hissing and growling.

The second limiter snapped, and its power doubled. It felt its body grow larger, but it still wasn't enough. The third limiter snapped and its power doubled again. The fourth, fifth, and sixth snapped and power flooded through it.

The nightmare creature, a profoundly stupid, inexperienced thing, eyed the cat growing larger and more powerful behind the shield, but didn't realize the danger it was in until it felt a much larger shield snap into place around the roof, cutting off any chance of escape. It whirled, snarling, and spotted a woman with long purple hair seated comfortably on the edge of the roof. It growled at her, and she smiled in a way that would have been terrifying to anything with more than a rudimentary sense of self. It leapt, and she spoke.

"_Mobile shell, cage the enemy!_" Misa said almost pleasantly. A purple sphere of power sprang into being around the attacking creature, and it snarled and howled in rage when it realized it was trapped. Misa reached out as if to grab the sphere twenty feet away, closed her empty fist, and shook it. The sphere flew back and forth, throwing the nightmare creature back and forth inside, bouncing it off the sides of the magical cage.

Meanwhile, the cat had continued to undo limiters. It paused at the twelfth limiter, then released that one too. Now...now it had enough power! It was dimly aware that it had become larger, but that didn't really matter. It had an enemy to remove from its master's home now, and it would stop at nothing to protect her. The shield its creator had made for it was in the way, so it swatted it hard and the shield spell collapsed. It spotted its prey trapped in a purple sphere of magic and swatted it out of the air. The shell spell broke on impact with the roof, and the cat trotted over to where it had hit, shaking the building as it went. It eyed the nightmare creature for a moment, a pitiful, disgusting thing, not even truly self aware, then stepped on it. The thing crunched sickeningly under its paw. It lapped up the remains (no use wasting free power, after all), and then trotted over to its creator.

* * *

><p>Misa grinned hugely at the playdoh cat; she had had no idea it had enough power to do what she had just seen it do. She was just glad the limiter function she had put into it had worked correctly...<p>

"That was a lot of overkill, you know? You've probably got the campus mages freaking out over that power spike. Heh, Kagami would be really proud of you," she said, reaching up to rub the giant playdoh cat's nose as it started purring. She absently wiped off some purplish-black ichor and stood back, putting her hands on her hips as she looked at the cat. "Can you replace the limiters?" she asked.

The cat looked at her for a moment, cocked its head to the side, then closed its eyes as if concentrating. Nothing happened for a moment and Misa began to wonder if the cat even knew what it was doing when the air pressure changed and the cat shrank back to about half its size. It opened its eyes and looked at her, then cocked its head to the side at an adorable angle.

"Mmrreow?"

Misa couldn't help but smile. "You're still as big as an elephant, kiddo. C'mon, try a little harder," she said, scratching its neck. The cat closed its eyes again, seemed to struggle for a moment, and then began to shrink. It paused after a moment, panting, and looked up at her again. "Just a little more, you can do it," she said reassuringly. The cat snorted, clenched its jaw, and shut its eyes, and continued to shrink.

* * *

><p>The cat lay there on its side, panting heavily, barely able to look at its creator as she carefully picked it up and cradled it in her hand. It let out a weak mew and she smiled gently at it.<p>

"It's okay, you can rest now. You've done really well today. Now c'mon, I'll go put you back where you belong..."

It had never before slept, it had never felt the need to do so; but riding in Misa's hand, for the first time in its six years of existence it felt itself nodding off, and soon drifted off to sleep.

* * *

><p>Kagami unlocked the door of the dorm room she shared with Endo Haru, relieved that training had been called off for today. Luckily something had come up, so Negi had told her not to worry about it today. She didn't know what was going on, but accepted the time off gratefully; training was always exhausting at best. She pushed open the door and stepped in and tossed her bag onto the bed, nearly hitting her playdoh cat.<p>

"Hey, what are you doing there?" she asked as she walked over and lifted him up. The cat looked up at her and started purring. She smiled and rubbed his head with her thumb. "You little punk, you shouldn't be coming out of your box when I'm not here, you know? What would happen if you got lost somewhere, huh? I'd be really sad if you got hurt..." she said as she fished around under her bed for the cat's box with her free hand. The cat sat up and began kneading her hand, and she laughed, delighted.

* * *

><p>That night, after its master and its master's new pet Endo had both gone to sleep, it slipped out of its box and into the hallway, and again made its way up the stairs to the roof, where it again found its creator. It trotted up to her and she picked it up, smiling.<p>

"So you sensed me here, huh little guy? You should be more careful," she said as she deftly flipped it over and ticked its belly. It squirmed. "Now I'm going to reinforce that limiter spell for you so you won't so much trouble next time something comes up, but you had better be careful! No more overkill, okay?" she asked, giving it a serious look. The cat looked up at her solemnly and meowed. Misa nodded. "Good. Take care of her, okay? I can't be around to protect her all the time, so you'll have to take care of things when I'm gone. Okay?" The cat meowed solemnly again, and Misa nodded again. "Good. Now let's get that spell updated..."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Author's Notes<strong>: Okay, so the playdoh cat's not quite as cute as it seems at first glance, huh? Still adorable, but kind of creepy too. I mean seriously, it goes around eating cockroaches and things like a slime from D&D. Ugh *shudder* In any case, power limiters. The cat has built in power limiters to keep the power it absorbs under control, which is very important for a freeform golem familiar. As far as Kagami's concerned it's a cat, but as far as it's concerned it's a blob of magical playdoh who's master prefers it to act and be shaped like a cat. Looking back to Rakan's power level chart in chapter 202 and 237, its common form has a .5 power rating like a regular cat, only smaller. Each limiter removed doubles the power available to use, so the first bumps it up to a 1, the second allows it to rise to a 2, the third moves it up to 4, and so on. By the time it felt it was ready to face the nightmare-spawned THING it fought in this chapter, it's power level was sitting at around 1024, pretty much everything it had from six years of absorbing life force from the things it hunts along with the tons of excess power bleeding off of Kagami, who is quite powerful herself (Starlight Breaker, anyone?). Its actual power level is limited by how much power it has on hand regardless of how many limiters are removed; in a place flooded with magical power like Eva's resort, there's no telling how powerful it could become, but in the real world where magic power doesn't just float around or bleed off of everything, it has to conserve its power. Anyway, by the time it was done removing its limiters, it had been forced to grow bigger than an elephant since it doesn't have very good control over that amount of power. It probably would have exploded at its current skill level if it had tried to remain small._

_Just think of that, an adorable little playdoh cat bigger than an elephant._


	5. Catching Up

**_Author's Notes_**: Just a little something to tide you over until the next chapter of Still Waters 3

* * *

><p><span>Title<span>: Catching Up

Characters: Asuna, Nodoka, Yue

Genre: Friendship, Slice of Life

Rated: T for drunkenness.

Timeframe: April 20th, 2009, after Chisame brought Yue back from the dig site in Tibet.

Spoilers: None, if you've read more than a few chapters of Still Waters 3 Book 1

* * *

><p>"So, what have you two been up to since I left?" Asuna asked, raising the shot glass to her lips.<p>

Nodoka and Yue glanced at each other for a moment as memories of superpowered madmen, evil geniuses, reanimated corpses, and even a demon attack or two ran through their minds in perfect sync.

"Well..." Nodoka began, unfortunately trailing off as she glanced at Yue, seated on the other side of Asuna. The short woman was already a little tipsy, even though she had only had two drinks thus far.

Yue glanced up and met Nodoka's eyes for an instant before turning back to give her glass a good, long look. "There was the time the dragon under Library Island got a thorn in its foot."

Asuna choked on her drink, more from the absurdity of the idea than anything else. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and gave her old friend an incredulous look. "Excuse me?"

Yue took another sip from her glass and used the bottom edge to draw circles on the bar top. "It was about a month after you left. One of the new kids got scared during a visit to Al and cast some magic arrows at the guardian dragon. Plant based of course," Yue added as an aside, rolling her eyes at the absurdity of the idea; _everyone_ knew you didn't use wood-based magic arrows on a _dragon_. Preposterous. Not unless you made the correct calculations and knew _exactly _what you were doing. "We got her out in time, but the dragon went on a rampage and broke out."

"You've gotta be kidding me," Asuna said, raising an eyebrow as she looked at Yue. Yue shrugged and took another sip of her drink, so Asuna turned back to Nodoka. "What happened then?"

Feeling only a little lightheaded by this point, Nodoka smiled slightly as she recalled the memory. "Everyone else was too far away, so Yue and I captured him. Negi-kun was very..." she trailed off, blushing deeply as she looked back down at her glass, seemingly only just noticing it was empty again. She held it out and the bartender refilled it.

"So you captured it," Asuna said, clearly hoping for a little elaboration on the point. Nodoka shrugged and took another sip in reply, so Asuna turned her attention back to Yue. "How did you manage that?"

"Simple enough," Yue said, now quite red faced and emboldened by the alcohol she had already imbibed. "Use the natural features of the land in the proper way with the correct embellishments and you can jury rig a capture array for almost anything; it's basic magic theory."

Asuna blinked at that, noting the way Yue seemed to gain confidence and verbosity as she became more and more drunk. She shook her head. "'Basic magic theory', huh?" she asked no one in particular as she looked back down at her drink and began tracing circles on the bar top in the ring of condensation from her glass as Yue had moments before.

"There was also the werewolf," Nodoka said distantly. Asuna realized Nodoka had been sporting a dreamy little smile for quite some time now; the effects of the alcohol, no doubt. She contemplated on her old friend for a moment. Long experience told her that some people started to look puffy when they got drunk, others began to look stupid and dimwitted, but it appeared Nodoka was one of those lucky ones who only grew more lovely with each drink. Yue...well, Yue looked quite angry by this point, her brows wrinkled, her words coming out in a strange mixture of sharp and slurred.

"Hmph. Werewolves," Yue said, disgusted, utterly unaware. "Oberflown bleaflags! Feablags." There was a short pause. "Fleabags, I mean," she said after a moment's contemplation, her speech noticeably slurred.

"So you two fought a werewolf?" Asuna asked. Honestly, she was quite surprised. Capturing an aggravated dragon was one thing (there were whole _series_ of books written on the subject in fact, along with all sorts of theories on the various methods taught in any advanced magic course), but fighting off a werewolf, extremely rare by their very nature, was something else altogether.

Yue let out a disgusted huff while Nodoka began the story and Asuna listened, fascinated.

"So he was too mortified to do anything else?" Asuna asked when the story was over. Nodoka nodded, blushing again as she recalled the image of the naked werewolf after all his fur had fallen out, and just how red his face had become.

"Tch. _Werewolves_," Yue said again, all but spitting the last word as she seized the bottle the bartender had been in the process of stealthily removing and refilled her glass, accidentally pouring a good portion over her hand when she didn't take it away fast enough.

"The werewolf said she reminded him of a washboard," Nodoka attempted to whisper into Asuna's ear. Due to her current inebriated state, she actually said it quite loudly into the side of Asuna's neck, though she still retained the good grace to look embarrassed when she realized she had spoken loudly enough for Yue to hear, even though the other girl showed no evidence of being able to hear anything at all as she explained the differences between various hair removal methods to the bar in general.

Asuna nodded agreeably enough, more in an attempt to keep the now really quite drunk Nodoka from repeating herself loudly enough for Yue to hear her and take offense. Sober Angry Yue was one thing, and though she had never seen Yue drunk before this little impromptu party, she wasn't particularly keen on seeing Drunk Angry Yue in action; the sober version was scary enough, and from what Asuna had heard thus far, she had become even worse in the last two years. Time for a subject change. "So what's this I hear about you having a detective agency?" she asked, turning back to Yue.

Yue almost immediately straightened up from the slouch she had slowly adopted in her drunkenness, and her gaze seemed to clear a little. "I'm the dest bedective in town!" she proudly proclaimed, puffing out what little she possessed of a chest in pride. "If it's a lost kitten, or a stolen heirloom, I fan kind it!" she said, staggering up onto the bar stool, where she stood swaying for a moment, pointing up at the ceiling as if at the sky.

"Ah...! H-hey wait! Yue, I think you should get down from there...!" Asuna said, standing up.

Yue turned to her and smiled as she swayed dangerously back and forth as the alcohol she had consumed thus far did its work. "Don' worry, I'm a magic bedective, the...the test in bown!" She blinked a few times, peered around the room for a moment, and shook her head to clear it, wobbling dangerously the whole while. "I'm already reversing my letters, aren't I? I must be pretty drunk..." she said, looking down at the top of the bar and the seat of the flimsy bar stool she was currently standing on. "Huh...that looks dangerous." Asuna moved to help her climb down before she could end up breaking her neck, but Yue waved her off and finished climbing down herself and was soon seated again, now leaning heavily on the top of the bar. Asuna noticed with wry amusement that Yue's legs didn't even reach the floor; she idly swung them back and forth as she sat there.

Asuna, deciding that enough was enough, drained her recently refilled glass and stood up, her movements sharp, lacking any of the clumsy or absurdly careful motions by which one might identify a drunkard. Nodoka stood up as well, much more carefully, and stood swaying a moment, leaning on the bar. Yue, trying to follow their lead, stood up as well, but immediately sat back down when her legs started to fail her. Asuna, having invited the other two out, paid for their drinks, and between the two of them they managed to convince Yue to stop giving the bartender an unplanned lecture on the history of the Yuan Dynasty's effect on Tibet, got her on her feet, and made their way out of the bar.

Once out on the street, Asuna looked over at Nodoka, a slight smile enhancing the bookworm's pleasantly flushed face as they walked along, supporting a muttering Yue between them. She appeared to have moved on from the Mongolians to the early Qing dynasty.

"So did you have fun?" Asuna asked quietly as they moved along.

Nodoka looked over at her, smiled with fond recollection, and nodded woozily. "Did you?"

Asuna smirked and looked up at what little she could see of the night sky among the bright lights of Mahora. She had spent her time away from Mahora undergoing extremely tough training at the hands of the Shinmeiryu, something almost unheard of for someone of her age and background, only allowed because of recommendations by Setsuna, a personal student of _both _of the Aoyama sisters, and Konoka, the future head of the Konoe family. The normal training style of the Shinmeiryu drove away half the students who entered before they moved on from the most basic of skills, and few of the rest were ever deemed ready (or worthy) of learning any of the more secretive arts of the style. Asuna had completed a process that normally took well over twenty years of hard work in little more than a year, received her ranking, and promptly performed so well on every mission she was given that she had been promoted yet again, this time to the title of Executioner, one that carried quite a bit of weight among the members of the Shinmeiryu, especially from one as young as Asuna appeared to be. There had been quite a bit of friction with other students and even full members of course, mostly from those who accused her of being promoted solely due to her friendship with Konoka and Setsuna, but a few duels quickly put an end to any speculation of that nature. Whatever else she was, Kagurazaka Asuna had most definitely earned the right to be addressed as an Executioner of the Shinmeiryu.

"Yeah...I think you could say I had a lot of fun too," Asuna finally said as they slowly moved down the street, supporting Yue between them.

"I believe I am about to vomit," Yue suddenly said, plain as day. They rushed her over to the nearest alleyway just as she began to make those familiar, unpleasant sounds that anyone who had ever tended to a drunken friend knew and loathed.

Asuna glanced up at Nodoka, standing on the other side and helping to support Yue while holding her long hair up and out of the way, and couldn't help but smile at the absurdity of the situation. Who would have ever expected _Yue_ of all people to get so drunk so easily? Asuna for one had never expected to see the day, and was quite certain by this point that she never would again; it hadn't taken much to put Yue into her current state, after all, and, drunk or not, Yue wouldn't forget. Asuna herself had downed far more than Yue had, and she didn't even feel it.

Yue finished retching after a moment and leaned back until she was standing against the wall of a building, Nodoka beside her as the two supported each other in an effort to remain upright. Asuna stood there, looking at her two old friends for a long, long moment. "So, I guess I'm finally back, huh?" she said, almost to herself.

Nodoka looked up, still smiling pleasantly, obviously not really comprehending what Asuna had meant. "Welcome back, Asuna-san."

Yue kept her head down, settling for raising her hand in a shaky greeting instead. "Welcome back."

Asuna couldn't help but smile as she helped the two off the wall. "Come on, we've got to get you two back home."


	6. Girl Talk

Title: Girl Talk

Characters: Akira, Yuuna, Makie, Ako, and Jennifer (OC)

Genre: Friendship

Rated: T for mature themes

Timeframe: May 24th, 2009

Spoilers: None

* * *

><p>"It's been a long time since the last time we all got together like this," Yuuna said, grinning hugely as she flopped back on the grass, putting her hands behind her head to keep the grass out of her hair.<p>

"Heh, yeah," Makie said wistfully as she gazed up at the clouds floating slowly by high above. "Not since I had to leave for my...for that thing my mom arranged."

There were several grunts of acknowledgment from the others. They all knew that the failure of Makie's arranged marriage was still a sore point for the woman, for many reasons. Not the least of which was the fact that Kazuya was a total douche and deserved every last bit of abuse he got.

The group descended into silence for a long, long moment, broken only when Jennifer reached up above her head on the grass to take Makie's hand and give it a gentle squeeze. "Don't worry about it, Makie," she said. "He isn't worth worrying over." Akira murmured agreement from beside Jennifer, as did Ako on the other side. "And besides, we can always send Max or Negi after him if he shows up again," she added as an aside, prompting some quiet giggles from Makie as she imagined the look on Kazuya's face as he faced the two angry foreigners out for his blood. Kazuya was a big man who liked to throw his weight around, but even he would have to think twice before facing the disturbing combo of a pissed of Negi and Max.

"Okay!" Yuuna suddenly said as she shot back up to a seated position and looked around at the other four. They had been the best of friends back in middle school and high school, and even though events after graduation had conspired to separate them for almost two years, the five of them had fallen right back into their old easy friendship. "Enough of that! This is the first time the five of us have all been together in one place since graduation! It's time for..._**girl talk**_!" she said, finishing up with particular emphasis on the last two words. Jennifer laughed out loud where she lay while Akira groaned and laid her forearm over her eyes.

"Kill me now..."

"Heh! Don't be like that Akira-chin~" Yuuna said as she eyed the others where they lay on the hillside around her. "You know you're curious about what everyone's been up to! So!" she said. "Girl Talk! ~Who Was Your First Kiss? Reunion Edition!~ Ako-chan, you're first!"

"Eh!" Ako asked nervously. "Why me? Why don't you go first?"

"W-what? Why me?" Yuuna demanded.

"You brought it up first," Jennifer said, her grin coming through in the sound of her voice as she deftly took over from Yuuna. The others murmured their agreement.

Yuuna squirmed uncomfortably. "W-well...it was...it was..." The others leaned in closer as she trailed off.

"Who was it?" Makie asked curiously.

Yuuna squirmed some more, looking uncomfortable and embarrassed. "I-it was...my dad! Kyaa~ I said it!" She promptly received a face full of grass from Jennifer. "Hey!"

"Come on, who was your first _real_ kiss?" Jennifer asked, leaning in close; the others followed her lead as everyone focused on Yuuna. Yuuna, for her part, looked away, embarrassed, while Jennifer smiled brightly at her.

"Well...it was a guy I met in America," she finally admitted, her face red. "He was really cool and he let me borrow his fully automatic AR-15 assault rifle chambered for fifty caliber Beowulf rounds. Oh man, I shot _so much stuff_ that day...!" she said, drifting off in fond remembrance of firing that gun. She had fired so many rounds that day that she had sported a silly grin for _days_ afterward.

Akira snorted in amusement. Trust Yuuna to be Yuuna.

"I guess it's my turn, huh?" Makie said absently. "Hmm...first kiss..." She frowned in thought for a moment as she tried to recall who had been the one to give her her first one. She had dated a lot of boys in high school, but... "I'd have to say it was Scary Max-sensei," she finally said, nodding. "For my pactio." The others nodded. Many of their friends had received their first kisses as part of a pactio.

"Your turn, Akira-chan!" Yuuna shouted, stretching out in the grass.

Akira blushed as she recalled her first kiss. "It was Max-sensei again, when he took me to that valley..." That whole period of her life had been quite chaotic; it wasn't every day that a huge, spooky looking foreigner showed up out of the blue and swept you off your feet without even meaning to. For her, that meeting had changed her entire life and introduced her to the fact that not only was magic real, but she herself was tremendously powerful, perhaps one of the strongest in the world, if she could learn proper control.

With Akira's confession out of the way, Yuuna turned to Jennifer, who grinned mysteriously and winked.

"Every girl has her secrets~"

Knowing she wouldn't get another word out of Jennifer, Yuuna rolled her eyes and moved on to Ako, who blushed at the sudden weight of everyone's attention. "Come on Ako-chan, spill it!"

"Yeah, I'm curious too! Who was your first kiss, Ako?" Makie asked. Akira nodded while Jennifer looked on expectantly.

Ako blushed heavily and murmured something under her breath.

Yuuna leaned closer, cupping a hand to her ear. "What was that? I couldn't hear you..."

Ako's face turned a distressing shade of red. "Negi-kun. I didn't know it was him at the time, though..."

Yuuna winced at that. Poor Ako's huge crush on 'Nagi' was common knowledge; the poor girl hadn't found out the truth about 'Nagi's true identity until almost a year after she first met him. It had been quite a heavy blow.

An awkward silence descended upon the group, broken a moment later by an evil sounding laugh.

"I've got another one," Jennifer said, grinning wickedly as Yuuna sat up again and looked at her.

"Yeah? What?"

Jennifer's grin widened. "Sex."

A shocked yet anticipatory silence again descended over the group as the other four girls looked at each other with intense curiosity.

"S-so, who's first?" Yuuna finally asked, eyes darting around to each of the others. The only one who would meet her gaze was Jennifer, who smiled in a disturbingly predatory manner. "H-how about-"

"Since you spoke first, how about you?" Jennifer suggested, eyes gleaming, not unlike a python staring down a rabbit.

Yuuna swallowed the lump in her throat, cursing herself for the impatience that had caused her to speak up; 'I should really know better by now,' she thought to herself reproachfully. Every time she opened her mouth...

"Well?"

When all else fails, lie. "O-oh, there've been tons of people! I-I went around the world, remember? I-I don't remember the first!" she said quickly. "Makie!"

"Eh? Me again?" Makie asked, blushing profusely. "W-well...um...I-I was engaged to be married, s-so...how about you, Akira!"

"_What_?" Akira said, sitting bolt upright as her face took on a shade of red reminiscent of a tomato. "I-I-I haven't...I mean...I've never...I-I..."

Yuuna slumped a little and heaved a sigh as she flopped back down on the grass. "Okay, I'll admit it: I lied. I've never done it either. But I thought for sure you and Max-sensei..." she said, trailing off and leaving the rest to the imagination of the others present. Indeed, just what it was that Max, Jennifer, and Akira did in that apartment of theirs was the subject of extensive rumor and much gossip among those who knew Akira; judging by said rumors and gossip, virtually all of it consisted of many, many, _many_ different things that required little to no clothing.

"Well...I guess I lied too," Makie admitted. "Kazuya wanted to, but...I always liked Negi-kun too much; besides, we never actually got married." The others nodded in understanding. Negi's tremendous charisma and ridiculous good looks tended to catch the attention of almost every woman he met; some fell harder than others, however.

"How about you, Ako-chan~" Jennifer said, grinning wide as she eyed her next victim.

Ako shrank back from the intensity of everyone's stares.

"Yeah, come on Ako, you had that boyfriend for two years in high school, right?" Makie asked, eyes bright at the idea of old rumors being proven true.

"Yeah, yeah! And then there was that really cool guy from Mundus Magicus during summer break of our senior year," Yuuna added. Ako turned a more distressing shade of red and looked as if her head might explode.

"Come on, that's not nice..." Akira said, largely ignored. But to tell the truth, she was sort of curious too...

"We~ell?" Jennifer asked again, inching closer.

Ako squirmed in place, playing with the hem of her skirt and looked down at the ground. "No...I've never..."

Yuuna blinked. "Whaaat? Man, you guys are so boring. But come on, you had to at least have done a lot of kissing, right? I mean come on, _two years_!"

Ako face was so red she looked as if she might burst, but she just nodded emphatically.

Yuuna slumped back to the ground, broken. "Damn it! The only one of us to get any action at all is Ako, and she was just kissing! You traitor!"

Makie rolled over on her side and squirmed around until she could see the others. "Well if you did that much kissing, you must be good at it, right?"

Ako's face, which had been trying to return to its normal pale shade, abruptly went nuclear again as everyone's attention shot back to her.

"That's right!" Yuuna said. "Well? Wee~eell?"

"I _am _curious..."

"Tell us, Ako-chan~" Makie said while Jennifer edged in closer.

"Come on, Ako-chan~! Spill it!" Yuuna demanded.

"I-I...I think so. Nobu-kun said I was really good," Ako said hesitantly, then spun away from them and covered her face.

"S...so cute~!" Jennifer squealed.

"Heh~" Yuuna said, sitting back. Nobu-kun had been Ako's two year boyfriend in high school...Yuuna hadn't been able to tell what Ako saw in him at the time; he wasn't cool at all, not like Yuuna's dad was.

It took a while, but eventually everyone settled back down and found themselves looking up at the clouds again.

"This is...really nice, isn't it?" Akira said after a long, long moment.

Yuuna turned her head to look at her old friend, and grinned. "Yeah. It's been _way_ too long since the last time."

Makie and Jennifer both nodded sagely, and even Ako, barely recovered from her intense bout of embarrassment earlier murmured her agreement. "I'm sorry I'm with the band so often..."

"Heh, yeah. You traitor," Yuuna said lightly.

"It's alright," Akira said in the gentle tone that had long ago marked her as 3-A's designated Shoulder To Cry On.

"Gah! You're just too cute, Ako-chan!" Jennifer squealed as she pounced Ako and started rolling around on the grass with her. So ky~ute~!

"K...kyaa!"

Yuuna sat up, grinning wide. "Dogpile on Ako-chan!"

Ako had just managed to disentangle herself from Jennifer when she turned and saw the others coming toward her. She just barely managed to let out a startled shriek before she was buried under female bodies.


End file.
